For the second time, a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday rebuffed Apple’s attempt to revive challenges to chipmaker Qualcomm’s technology patents. In a 2-1 opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Apple couldn’t bring the appeal because of the companies’ 2019 resolution of a global patent dispute, which gave Apple a license to tens of thousands of Qualcomm patents.
A different Federal Circuit panel in April unanimously rejected another Apple challenge to related Qualcomm patents in a similar case.
“We do not write on a blank slate in assessing Apple’s standing here,” U.S. Circuit Judge Sharon Prost said Wednesday. “The writing is already on the wall.”
Circuit Judge Kara Stoll joined Prost in the majority decision.
In a dissent, Circuit Judge Pauline Newman said Apple had standing to challenge the patents despite the license.
Newman said there is a continuing controversy because Qualcomm could sue Apple again after the license ends in 2025, and it suffers “concrete present harm by having to pay royalties to be free from a patent it believes to be invalid.”
MacDailyNews Note: On April 16, 2019, Apple and Qualcomm announced an agreement to dismiss all litigation between the two companies worldwide.
In December 2020, Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, told staff that Apple is building their own internal cellular modem for future devices, a move that would replace components from Qualcomm.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Qualscum? Meh.